


That's Her

by speakertone



Category: Titus Andronicus - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Siblings, i dont know what else to say except for that this play made me feel so bad for them, theyre just siblings...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 20:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30094854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakertone/pseuds/speakertone
Summary: "And that’s her, that’s Lavinia, in his arms and under his skin, it’s the same Lavinia who should be calling him obnoxious for worrying too much."-Lucius is an annoying older brother, and Lavinia is Lavinia.
Relationships: Lucius (Titus Andronicus) & Lavinia (Titus Andronicus)
Kudos: 1





	That's Her

**Author's Note:**

> so the bloody gorefest play made me feel real actual feelings... sorry guys, hope you like it!
> 
> standard cw for titus andronicus, but aside from a lot (a _lot_ ) of blood and death, nothing too explicit is brought up.

“Lavina,” his father says, when Lucius holds the baby in his arms- and he is practically an adult, fully 13, and has held so many babies, so many siblings, but she is the first girl, and she grapples up with tiny, pudgy hands, wailing like babies always do. Lucius smiles.

“My sister,” he says to her, then turns to his father with a grin. “That’s her! My sister! My first sister! She’s going to teach me how to talk to girls, and she’s going to have nice long hair, and she’s going to paint her nails, and she’s going to get the soccer ball for me when I kick it too far, and she’s going to be the nurse when we play spaceship and-”

“Lucius,” Marcus says, and Titus busies himself with the nurses and midwives and things. Marcus is smiling, rubbing his hands up and down Lucius’ arms, and Lucius stops in the middle of his tirade. “She’s still very little. We’ll have to wait for her to grow up first.”

Lucius’ mile-wide smile is still radiant on his face, and what a strange thing for a boy with so many siblings, to be so excited about taking care of another, but he bounces on his feet, unsteady and overeager. “Yes! Yes, uncle!”

Lavinia cries out and Lucius looks down at her, rocks her back and forth. “My sister, you’re my sister!”

-

When Lavinia is 8, Lucius sits on the floor with her in the living room, handing her toy vegetables and plastic baskets and stuffed animal customers.

“No!” she says rather suddenly, and Lucius raises his eyebrows, holding up the elephant with the overlong trunk. “That’s not Vanilla’s table! She sits there, with- with- with Lavender and Brownie!”

Lucius leans back against the sofa. “What if Vanilla doesn’t want to sit there today?” He lifts one of the toy’s arms- hooves? And gestures with it in Lavinia’s direction, speaking in a squeaky falsetto now: “I wanna try something new, Lav! I wanna sit with Stripey and Paige!”

Maybe, he thinks, when her face turns red, he can tell Titus that he’s teaching her diplomacy- that she’ll use these skills someday, that she has to learn to communicate with people who simply won’t do what she wants them to do. Or maybe he can say that he thinks every child gets angry at some point, and any child is going to need an older sibling to be the annoying one. If she’s going to grow up hating any of them for 4 years- as any younger sister should- Lucius wouldn’t mind it being him. He smiles, pinches her cheek.

“That’s not Vanilla’s table!” she says again, and Lucius aquiesses, making Vanilla sigh heavily (“Oh-kay…”) and sit down with the other stuffed animals. Good god, there are so many of them. But then, that’s Lavinia, and she serves them a dinky plastic plate of bell peppers and tomatoes, and Lucius picks at them. 

“Lucius, you can’t touch the customers’ food! That’s unhie- unhyje… it’s not clean!”

“Unhygienic?” he offers, and Lavinia crosses her arms.

“You’re so mean! It’s not fair!”

“You’re my sister, Lav,” Lucius says, “I’m supposed to be a little mean.”

She doesn’t get it yet- maybe she’ll never get it, but isn’t that what older brothers do? He picks up the plate she’s set out for him, his hands fumbling at the tiny fork molded into the chicken leg, and makes a noise like he’s taking a hearty bite. 

“Mmm!” he says, and pushes air in between his cheeks so that his mouth looks full. Lavinia is suddenly at attention, seeming like she’s not nearly as upset as she was a moment ago, and looks up at him with eager eyes. “Thatsh good, Lav! Thatsh tashty! Mmm!”

She claps her hands together. “Yay!”

-

At 14, Lavinia is starting to become a person, and Lucius notices over dinner that she’s not nearly as soft-spoken and doe-like as his father might have preferred from his only daughter.

But then, really, she was raised surrounded by teenage boys. When she loudly announces that she thinks war is stupid, Lucius notices Titus grip his fork so hard that it begins to shake, and Marcus stifles a laugh. But she’s right, he ventures, and the long, long dinner table erupts into heated discussion. Napkins are thrown, someone threatens someone else with a steak knife. Lavinia joins in, yelling and slamming her fists on the table. Lucius chuckles, takes a long drink of his wine, and stands to shout at Quintus from where he’s sitting on the other end of the table. Lavinia startles and spills her orange juice, then points an accusatory finger at Lucius- it’s his fault! Her laughter gives her away.

She’s more enthusiastic about things like this, roughhousing and wrestling and throwing shoes, than Lucius was, and she’d make a good soldier, if Titus would let her. She’d make a good soldier if she didn’t think war was stupid. When she slides down the railing of their grand staircase, she picks up speed and is screaming like nobody is watching her- Lucius has to run and catch her so that she doesn’t break her tailbone. She complains, calls him a killjoy, and Lucius laughs, puts her down and says that fine, he’ll do it with her. She likes it when she gets her way, she drags him up the stairs and instructs him like she’s been doing this her whole life. Maybe she has. 

Of course, in public, she’s what Titus calls easier and respectable, she’s more quiet and speaks when she’s spoken to, but she’s privy to running into large flocks of pigeons and sending them flying with an excited scream and the frantic stomping of her boots. It’s cruel to do that to the birds, Marcus will tell her, and Lavinia gives him the smile of hers that’s so joyful, so obnoxiously cheerful, that Marcus looks both ways over his shoulder and gives her a bag of birdseed. Lucius ducks out of a conversation with a friend from school, puts a hand over her shoulder, a silent request for a handful, and she scowls at him, pouring half the bag into his gloves- he never asks for half the bag. Has never asked. And she could give him a pinch of seed, she could give him 4 seeds total, but she’s generous and he’s Lucius, her annoying older brother. When he walks up to her, a pigeon on his shoulder, she has scratches up and down her bare arms from the bird talons, but she’s smiling like it’s prom night. Titus will be upset, later, that they abandoned appearances, but sometimes they’re tired of listening. Sometimes Titus’ rules are stupid, sometimes Lavinia wants to feed her birds and Lucius wants to help. That’s how she is. That’s how she’s always been. That’s her.

-

At 18, Lavinia knocks on the door to his room, and (after checking that his wife is still asleep) Lucius answers, of course. What else would he do? She’s nervous, wringing her hands together, and quiet, which she never is, when she ushers him into the living room where they used to play restaurant. They’re sitting on the floor, legs crossed, and she leans over and confesses-

“Lucius, you know Bassianus?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Lucius.”

“Right. Sorry. Keep going.”

“We’re kind of… Hey, you’re not gonna kill me, right?”

Lucius rolls his eyes, pillows his head onto the couch cushion. It’s so late, it’s too early, and Lavinia looks worried and is working her hands like they’re dough, and Lavinia is never worried, and Lucius has never cared. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Me, Lav?”

“Ugh- oh, god, you’re right! I hate it when you’re right, by the way.” She laughs. “We’re kind of an item. Don’t tell dad.”

And when has he ever told Titus anything important? “Well, of course. Why else’d you wake me up? Boy advice?”

Lavinia gags. “Oh my god, ew, no! I just needed someone to know- Bassianus and I promised we wouldn’t tell anyone until the time was right. But I didn’t know if there would be a ‘right time’ soon, and, you know.”

“Oh, yeah. You’re so impatient. Sooo impatient.”

“I’m about as impatient as you are mean!”

“What, not at all?”

“Why’d I even tell you!” Lavinia grabs a throw pillow and chucks it at his head, which Lucius barely blinks at. He hadn’t been born with the reflexes of a soldier, so his still need refining. The soldier, well, that’s her, of course, Lavinia, with the brute strength she’d built up just to win against her brothers in a fair fight.

When Lavinia finally softens, cools down from the high of telling a secret, of getting it off of her chest, she looks sleepy, head lolling a little towards him. “You’re really not gonna, like, overreact or anything?”

“You’re my sister, Lavinia.” Lucius gets to his feet, offers her a hand. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed.” 

“Thanks, stinky.”

“I just showered!”

-

She’s 22 when things get bad.

-

“Why, Marcus, so she is.”

That’s her, that’s Lavinia, and she’s a sight for sore eyes, she’s a sight to make eyes sore, and bile and tears and blood are pounding in the back of his throat and his head and his eyes, and good god, yes, that’s her, that’s his sister, and she was fine this morning, she was happy this morning, with her husband and her obnoxious cocky smile, but now she’s a walking pile of bones and is shambling, is in pieces, and no, please, this can’t be her, this can’t be her, this can’t be happening to Lavinia, not Lavinia.

He urges her to speak and she stands still like she doesn’t know his voice, and she is mutilated, cut into pieces, and where is her tongue, her silver tongue, for joking and calling Lucius mean and annoying? Where are her hands- her hands, her hands were so small, her tiny, pudgy hands, wrapped around his finger when he was 13, and she is silent, but can’t she wail? That’s her, that’s Lavinia, and this is Lucius and how much can Lucius take before he cracks? What kind of brother, what kind of eldest son, to allow so many of his brothers to die in war, to watch Mutius die defending her, to try miserably to protect Quintus and Martius, to be exiled and banned from so much as seeing them, and then fail to protect her? He wants to stumble to her, take her in his arms- that’s Lavinia, that’s _Lavinia_ \- he wants to cry and rail and sob and no, dear god, he cannot, because Titus is there and Titus will call that weakness and frailty, and after yesterday he cannot be weak and frail, but please, father, _please_ , he has to hold her. That’s Lavinia. 

And the words aren’t coming out of his mouth when he watches the scene unfold, maybe it’s better to be quiet and calm now and angry when it passes- but please, take his hand, not his father’s, how much more can he lose, let a part of him be taken and torn apart and bitten off, he couldn’t protect Lavinia, he doesn’t know how to help, she can’t tell him, and there are too many people in this room, can’t it be 4am in their living room again? And Lavinia breathes, heaving, and blood is pouring from her mouth and blood is pouring from where her hands would have been, and it’s too much for Lucius, it’s too much, he has to do something, he’ll fetch an axe, he’ll-

Of course, his father takes this sacrifice from him. And then Quintus and Martius, and it’s so much _loss_ for one brother, for one eldest son, and he and Lavinia walk over to their heads like they, the living, are the ghosts, and there are no more tears for them to cry, they are both riverbeds of rock, they have both hit the bottom, they can’t afford the emotion to even be angry- killed, killed, killed, exiled, mangled, and _please_ , Titus, just go, leave already, because Lucius has said his goodbyes to everyone but he has to do something for her, for Lavinia, who is teeth and wrists and hair in her face and blood collecting in the dips her collarbones, and she cries silent tears, and please, god, not her, why her, what did Lavinia do? What did Lavinia do to deserve this? When Lucius has committed the crime of negligence and failure and not spending enough time with her and him and him and him and him and time is passing, and it isn’t passing and why are Titus and Marcus still there, won’t they go? Can’t they leave, please, and-

They’re gone, and the silence is so comforting that he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if he has anything to say. Instead, he holds Lavinia’s face in his hands, cries, presses a kiss to her forehead, please, let this heal her, and she wraps her arms around his waist as best she can, and she’s shaking, and who can blame her? She groans, she gurgles out some word that he wishes he knew, and it feels like Lucius has been shot. He thought he could read her mind, when she was 4, and he wishes he could.

“Lavinia,” he says, and that’s her, that’s Lavinia, in his arms and under his skin, it’s the same Lavinia who should be calling him obnoxious for worrying too much. “I wish there was something I could do.”

She weeps into his shirt. Is there anything more he can say? He’s exiled. He’s banished. He’s leaving to collect an army, to fight for his brothers, to fight for her, Lavinia.

His sister.

-

And then he wishes he said more, because Lavinia is dead. 

There is no kindness in that dining hall, and Lavinia’s dead and he caught her as she fell, so she wouldn't break her tailbone, and yes, _no_ , she’s not breathing, she’s dying, she’s dead, and the empress is dead, and his father is dead, and he’s killing the emperor and please, let it be over, let him sleep for once, and there’s nobody left but him and Marcus and Marcus is trying to hold himself together.

Should Lucius hold himself together? What parts of him are still left? How can he even try?

He’s crawling to Lavinia, hand to floor, knee to floor, hand to floor, and it is agonizing and slow and tedious, it’s too slow. Past the meat on the tile, the glasses, the wine, the plates, the blood- there’s so much blood, how could there be so much blood in any one person? How could there be so much blood in 4? And he inches past Titus- would that Lucius could walk. Would that he still had the strength. 

And that’s her, Lavinia, she’s 22 and she’s 22 and she’s 1 and 8 and 14 and 18 and she’s 22 and she is so limp and her hair is so straggly, and oh, Lavinia, Lavinia-

“I’m sorry,” Lucius says in a low whisper, and he’s talking to each of his brothers and his father and her, he’s talking to _her_ , “I’m sorry, Lav, I’m sorry. I’m crying all over your nice dress.”

Marcus is watching, puts out a hand to still the servants who are sick at the mess. Lucius must look mad. He is so tired.

“My sister, my first sister. I should have stayed, shouldn’t I? I’m so stupid- you’re right, I’m annoying.” He rocks her back and forth. “You dressed up tonight and I couldn’t even say hello. And things happened so fast, and I couldn’t say goodbye. And I’m sorry, Lavinia. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have been you.

“Come on.

“Let’s get you to bed.”

-

That’s her, in his arms.

His sister.

Lavinia.


End file.
